


'razor wire and broken dreams'

by abaddon (nothingbutfic)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, History, Oratory, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 23:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12519016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingbutfic/pseuds/abaddon
Summary: A speech, given in the midst of war. He burns with poetry and the need to win.





	'razor wire and broken dreams'

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written post HBP.
> 
> For Kevin, always.

  
Historian's Note: Seamus Finnigan operated as an intelligence and field operative throughout the Lake Country and North England for most of 1997-98, chiefly collecting information, keeping communication open. Although he was known for his humour, he had never had much experience at speechwriting or politics. While researching a small, neutral-but-leaning-towards-Voldemort wizarding community south-east of Newcastle, Seamus was asked to represent the Order's cause. He apparently stayed up all night preparing his speech, wracked with anxiety and indecision, and from the recording charms that still exist, this is the result. After this, the denizens of the community not only agreed to support the Order, they also worked at forming an alliance with other neighbouring hamlets, and converting others to their cause. Although many of their community were executed or imprisoned, their willingness to become partisan seemingly shamed many of the conservative elements of North English wizarding society, and lead to the Order gaining a firm hold on the area ideologically, a hold that was displayed in polling data and electoral results following the inaugural elections of late 2005. As a result, the following speech is considered to be one of the most instrumental of the early war period, and is a classic oral history text of the conflict 

Seamus himself emerged a minor celebrity from the War, as did many of his Housemates. Assigned the position of aiding propaganda for the Order hierarchy from early 1999, he subsequently entered the Ministry of Magic during the administration of Kingsley Shacklebolt, and was seen as crucial in helping form a clear narrative for post-war wizarding society. In his personal life, he refrained from telling many 'war stories', although according to his subsequent husband Kevin Entwhistle, Seamus did like to joke about his famously talented mouth.

 

Speech given on the 5th of November, 1998.

I was born and bred in Belfast. I learned to play amongst razor wire and blast craters, the burnt out wrecks of houses in which the wizarding wing of the IRA made play. Sometimes the British Army tried to breach the lines, take our guns and our bombs and our wands. We spat on them, kicked and screamed and bit, cause this was our home and our land and they were our enemy. I was friends with Muggle kids; Catholics, of course - we all had the Prods and the British to blame – and you couldn’t be on different sides if you hated the same people, and how we hated.

And then I came here. It was like an entirely different world. You mean, there's a place that you don't kill or be killed, that you try not to judge, that you stand up for what you believe in, that you look out for more than just you and yours? A place in which you can afford civility, respect, where you don’t point at people and talk about how they’re going to die? Amazing.

Amazing and impossible to believe.

So I told jokes. I stayed mostly quiet. I learned. I discovered I didn't like half of you, but I could get along, cause we were all wizards, and we all had that, and I knew what it was like to have a common enemy.

But some of you are Prods, and some of you are British, and I? I am just a halfblood Irish Catholic, who has little more than his wand and his faith to protect him. But better men, and women too, have suffered more for less cause, and I know who my friends are, I know who I have faith in. I know who made me realise that there is more to this life that being victims or villains, that hate and fear and rage are our lesser weapons, not our greatest, and refusing to act is an act of cowardice by any other name.

I am an Irish Catholic halfblood. My Dad is a Muggle; my Mum is a witch; my blood is impure, my soul tainted, my reasoning clearly undone. According to those who cling to older ways, and worser gods than mine, my life should, and could be forfeit, as would those of my family, for the simple crime of having been born, or falling in love with the wrong person.

The Muggles have killed each other over race, over religion, creed and colour, sexuality and law. Our great lesson from this is to do exactly the same?

Just because you're a wizard doesn't make you any less of a coward. Just because you can hurt doesn't make you smart. Just because you can kill doesn't mean you've won; it's a very sad victory indeed when you're only way of taming the opposing argument is by shutting them up permanently. My Dad would have said it’s the way of a tool and a loser, a showman who has nothing more to lead the people with than empty threats, hollow promises and the courage of a gun.

But then, he’s a Muggle, so what does he know?

There are those who seek to destroy us, who seek to kill us for who we are and what we believe. They wish to do this because they want power; they wish to do this because they want to be safe, and claim this is the only way.

People talking about ‘only ways’ might as well be talking about ‘final solutions’, and it’s not quite only and never completely final. After all, if they win, and they take our land, and our homes, and make it theirs, then by all means, it will be theirs.

And then they’ll just decide yet again that some people don’t deserve it, that some people aren’t good enough, and it is their job to decide who is worthy and who shall be saved.

That kind of power isn’t for any man to have. Not Muggle or Wizard or Witch; in taking the lives of others, we allow our own to be taken – shall we be nothing more than killers? Are burnt out homes and hate the only blessings we can give our children?

My friends and I go to war, and we shall kill, not with laughter, but with tears, and a heavy heart; for we will know the face of our enemy and it shall be our own face. Our crimes will cover the land, and our sins shall never be forgotten. Rather than cover up the slaughter we bring we shall cry out to the heavens and raise monuments in the name of our victims, because this way we will remember, and trust that may not happen again. We did not start this war, nor did we wish it, but the time for wishing is over.

_All_ wars are crimes. _All_ murders are sins. These facts cannot be ignored. So we go to win, and we go to end this, for end it we must, and end it we shall. They may kill me; they may kill you. I do not say such deaths are noble, they do not guarantee us a place with the saints, but there is a price for freedom, and we have taken our freedom for granted for far too long. Too much ground has been given up; too many innocents have fallen because we have stood idle, because we have wished to conciliate, to attempt, to appeal to the angels of our better nature. What better nature have they, those who would kill, and kill again? For the worst reasons; not that there are any good reasons for killing to be done.

We wished to make parley, to find common ground. But what common ground have we, with those who have killed? What forgiveness can we find for ourselves, those who have stood by and not prevented it?

There are those amongst you who will say it is better to be safe than sorry. Better to be alive than dead. Better to wait for a political solution, than to risk civil war.

I say we are _already_ in a civil war. These people would have me killed simply because I was born; they would have you killed for speaking up in protest. Is this the safety you would have? Is this the life you would lead?

I say that a life without principles is a life wasted. That we can afford to have this chatter because we are alive, not like those families who lay in ditches, whose children have vanished, whose members claw at the walls of St. Mungo’s and whose screams cannot be silenced.

We have stood idle for long enough, and cared for too few. If we do not stop this, who will? Where will you let the line be drawn? Anywhere, as long as you and yours are not touched? Who will you let die, because it doesn’t affect you?

I am responsible for my brother, and he has sinned against all that is good in this land. I go to fight him, and I go to stop him, and I go to love him still, because he is still a person like you, like me, and there is enough hatred in this world.

I go to prove that I am better than hate, stronger than fear, more powerful than the most towering rage. That even if I am killed, I cannot be defeated- that we cannot be defeated, for are one people, one body, one blood, and one word: and that word is ‘hope.’

I go fight for hope and justice and freedom, and I may fall in this fight, as may we all; but that is not for me to say. Enough people have died, and if adding one more to the toll saves even one life, than that is a fair price, say I. We may all die, but if we do not attempt it here and now, if we do not stem this tide then they will come for me. And when I am dead, and hanging, they will point to you, or _you_ , or _you_ , and cause you to suffer for slights real or imagined, because they can, and they know no better.

This is the great struggle of our age; we must attempt, we must entreat, we must beg and barter and suffer no quarter or give no half- this may not be paradise, may never be paradise. But better the struggle than the charnel pit, or this world will never know it’s true promise.

This is not a time for the faint hearted; this is a time for great deeds, and great dreams to bind them.

This is a time for people to stand up.

This is a time for people to say 'I will not take any more.'

This is a time for people to say 'There is no middle road, there can be no surrender or no defeat. That there is a thing more important than house and blood and family and stupid, stubborn pride. And that thing is life, and should be protected at all costs.'

This is not a time for cowardice; this is a time for heroes.

Be better than you think you are. There is more to this other Eden than razor wire and broken dreams.

This is a time for _heroes_ ; we can not be found wanting.   


 


End file.
